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Goa Trip Day 3: Beach bums

Before going to sleep, I was vaguely thinking about waking up early to see the sunrise as we were going to sleep early and it had been years since I had seen sun rise. That vague thought remained vague after all and I woke somewhere around 8:30 am. Jamaica and his staff were already up going about their daily routines in addition to their wrapping up the place.

Caught this crab as it was hiding in sand

After a quick shower, me and wifey walked along the beach to search for a place to relax and have breakfast. Along the way, I was thinking about jumping in to water again, but didn’t want to take risk with the only one working camera left. Nevertheless while walking along the waves, found a second type of crab which was larger and quite a bit more interesting than the white ones I found last evening. It was trying to hide in the sand while I picked it up. Wifey screamed louder than last time and threatened to drown me in the sea if I brought it close to her. But to be fair, she did take some pictures when I requested. After I put it back, the crab dug itself in to the sand within 2-3 seconds.

Dessert

We kept on walking among the waves and found a beach shack kind of restaurant with ground seating facing the sea. Waiter Pappu told us that the day would be the last working day of the season and they had only about half of the items on menu available for order. We ordered some food and drinks and waited. These places in touristy areas are really nice to have long leisurely meals without staff waiting for you to pay and begone as soon as possible. We sat there watching sea, people while the cook prepared our breakfast or brunch. I ordered some fish tikka while wifey had some kind of vegetable biryani with raita. I had sea food for almost every meal afterwards during our stay in Goa.

After the meal, we spent some more time relaxing and then walked further up the beach to see the sweet water lake Jamaica had talked about. Along the way, we saw a large number of a different kind of crab which digs a hole in the sand to hide or maybe catch prey. There was an area on the beach where they were scurrying about by dozens if not hundreds. At the end of beach, we climbed a few stairs to walk through a typical touristy market with shops selling gaudy clothes, over priced knick knacks and “cheap” food joints. The aforementioned lake was at the other end of the market with just about 30-35 meters of beach separating it from the sea.

Beach near fresh water lake

The lake by itself is very beautiful with green hills covering it on 3 sides, clear shallow water, small rocky island and overall great view. But dumbass Indian tourists which are a bane of beautiful places everywhere were here too spoiling everything. We had a bunch of ugly pot-bellied uncles with beer bottles, college kids probably on their first outing away from parental control, families with entitled screaming children and the usual annoying riff raff. Every single type loud as a rabid monkey, taking “selfies”, posing with alcohol like it’s some hard earned award and spreading trash. Even though trash cans were within reach, almost every all the idiots were throwing beer bottles in to the very lake they were swimming in. One of the hills was dug up for some crappy tourist lodge and a corner had some eating joints spoiling the whole beauty of the place further.

Feeling annoyed we stood there for a couple of minutes before walking on further along the beach where the way was blocked by big rocks. The waves here were strong and were crashing on the rocks loudly. Almost every single rock was covered with sea shells and crabs. I climbed one rock to take a better look but there was nothing specially interesting. A few tourists were enjoying parajumping (if that’s what it’s called) by jumping from the small hills nearby. I thought to climb up one of the nearby hills, but it didn’t really looked worth the effort. After the really heavy meal, I didn’t feel like doing that para jumping thing either, so planned to do it later.

A crab digging a hole for itself

Walking back, we stopped at a sea side restaurant for drinks and then walked back to our shack for a shower and nap. In the evening, it was time for another bathing session in the sea. Near about sunset, we started walking in the opposite direction of what we had taken in morning and stopped at another sea facing restaurant for lunch. A Russian man was giving some kind of talk/lecture with some soothing background music and the place was full of people listening to him intently. We couldn’t understand anything but the background music was nice and food (fish curry with rice for me and some chinese noodle thing for wife) was good enough. After we walked out, a nearly full moon was high up in the sky and we walked back to the shack for sleep.